autumn leaves

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Down amid the trenches Where the dead were piled, Sleeps the gallant soldier, Far from wife and child. HETTY MARVIN. AN INCIDENT OF THE REVOLUTION. QPREADING the linen beside the stream, O Watching it bleach in the sun's bright gleam, Sprinkling the water with small, white hand, Fair as the fairest in all the land Was Hetty Marvin, the little maid Of twelve, who beside the linen staid. Sweet Hetty Marvin, whose mother brave, Good Governor Griswold's head to save, When the British attacked New London town And many a patriot brave shot down, Her cousin had safely hidden away, In her quiet home, for many a day. But winds had wafted the secret back, And the subtile foe were on his track. A price was set on the Governor's head, And for further safety, again he fled With rapid footsteps across the way, Where Hetty bleached her linen that day. He paused a moment beside the maid, " My life is in danger grave," he said, " I hasten to reach my little boat, Below on the stream it is now afloat, But say to the British when they reach here, That I took the other path, my dear." "Nay," said the little maiden, "nay, You must not ask me to do that way, Why do you tell me which way you go, When I should not tell a lie, you know?" And yielding at once to her anxious fears, Poor Hetty burst in a flood of tears. The Governor spake with bated breath: " Would you give your cousin away to death, My only hope is to turn them back, Their search to make on another track, So tell them I fled by the other way, And Heaven will bless you many a day." The Puritan maiden quickly replied, " Heaven would not bless me, if I lied, But though they kill me, they shall not know From me, the direction which you go, But stay, good cousin, why further fly...